�㽶��Ƶ News - vitamin D

How vitamin D deficiency can lead to autoimmune diseases

webfull — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 15:20:40 +0000

As Canadians brace for “vitamin D winter” – months when the sun’s angle is too low to produce the vitamin in the skin – a �㽶��Ƶ study explains why vitamin D deficiency early in life is associated with a higher risk of autoimmune diseases.

During childhood, the thymus helps train immune cells to distinguish between the body’s own tissues and harmful invaders. A vitamin D deficiency at that stage of life causes the thymus to age more quickly, the researchers discovered.

Published: 21 October 2024

Vitamin D may not protect against COVID-19, as previously suggested

webfull — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 15:34:05 +0000

While previous research early in the pandemic suggested that vitamin D cuts the risk of contracting COVID-19, a new study from �㽶��Ƶ finds there is no genetic evidence that the vitamin works as a protective measure against the coronavirus.

"Vitamin D supplementation as a public health measure to improve outcomes is not supported by this study. Most importantly, our results suggest that investment in other therapeutic or preventative avenues should be prioritized for COVID-19 randomized clinical trials," say the authors.

Published: 4 June 2021

Less body fat for toddlers taking vitamin D

webfull — Mon, 02 May 2016 14:53:48 +0000

Supplement given during first year of life critical for muscle-mass development

A healthy intake of vitamin D in the first year of life appears to set children up to have more muscle mass and less body fat as toddlers, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatric Obesity.

The findings emerged from research initially aimed at confirming the importance of vitamin D for bone density. The additional benefit in terms of body composition came as a surprise for the research team.

Published: 2 May 2016

Less body fat for toddlers taking vitamin D

webfull — Mon, 02 May 2016 14:14:05 +0000

By Fergus Grieve, McGill Newsroom

Supplement given during first year of life critical for muscle-mass development

Published: 2 May 2016

Association between low vitamin D and MS

webfull — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 20:26:06 +0000

Low levels of vitamin D significantly increase the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study led by Dr. Brent Richards of the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital, and published in PLOS Medicine. This finding, the result of a sophisticated Mendelian randomization analysis, confirms a long-standing hypothesis that low vitamin D is strongly associated with an increased susceptibility to MS. This connection is independent of other factors associated with low vitamin D levels, such as obesity.

Published: 25 August 2015

Calcium supplements linked to longer lifespans in women

webfull — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:02:45 +0000

Taking a calcium supplement of up to 1,000 mg per day can help women live longer, according to a study whose lead author was Lisa Langsetmo, a Ph.D. Research Associate at �㽶��Ƶ, and whose senior author was Prof. David Goltzman, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the Department of Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine and researcher in the Musculoskeletal Disorders axis at the Research Institute of the �㽶��Ƶ Health Centre (RI-MUHC).Their findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Published: 22 May 2013

The right amount of vitamin D for babies

webfull — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:53:58 +0000

Vitamin D is crucial to the growth of healthy bones. It is especially important that babies get enough of it during the first twelve months of their lives when their bones are growing rapidly. This is why health care providers frequently recommend that parents give their babies a daily vitamin D supplement. But how much vitamin D should babies be given?

Published: 30 April 2013

Newly discovered effects of vitamin D on cancer

webfull — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 14:45:01 +0000

A team of researchers at �㽶��Ƶ have discovered a molecular basis for the potential cancer preventive effects of vitamin D. The team, led by McGill professors John White and David Goltzman, of the Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Physiology, discovered that the active form of vitamin D acts by several mechanisms to inhibit both the production and function of the protein cMYC. cMYC drives cell division and is active at elevated levels in more than half of all cancers. Their results are published in the latest edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Published: 22 November 2012